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Cash Flow Optimization To Purchase Capital Equipment

May 12, 2014

You’re facing a common problem for businesses that need to invest in capital equipment to grow. You know your business will grow if you purchase additional equipment to meet demand, but you simply can’t afford it because you don’t have enough cash flow. Most businesses in this situation should explore these three options: 1) Optimize revenue opportunities, 2) Streamline costs and/or 3) Seek outside financing/capital.

Optimize revenue opportunities

New equipment may certainly add to your revenue over time. However, there may also be ways to increase revenue using your existing equipment. Specifically, evaluate your clients and list them in order of profitability to your business. Those at the bottom or the least profitable clients, should be replaced with better clients. This strategy will increase the revenue per client or profitability for the business and thus you’ll have more cash flow for future capital equipment purchases.

Streamline costs

This would mean reducing non-essential expenses such as certain administrative and redundant costs. You’ll need to review all of the costs in your business to complete this process. Please note though that this cost-cutting strategy may not provide enough cash flow to purchase new equipment right away. Usually, cost cutting programs take time to provide substantial savings. (more…)

3 Common Copyright Mistakes Creatives & Freelancers Make

May 9, 2014

We all make mistakes.

So let me refer you to number seven of the Dali Lama of Tibet’s “Eighteen Rules of Living,” where he gives us the following advice, “When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. And do not let your pride get in the way of taking those steps.”

The main idea is that trying to hide a mistake, once you have become aware of it, by pretending it didn’t happen only perpetuates the goof up and inevitably leads to sinking deeper and deep into the quicksand of oops. There has to be a more than a million zillion possible copyright related snags and unintentional misunderstandings that lurk within the professional shadows just waiting to trip up even the most seasoned of freelancers.

This article seeks to aid freelancers in avoiding a nasty stumble by illuminating the wiles of three of the more common snares that imperil the footsteps of the unwary.

Mistake No. 1: Making Incorrect Assumptions as to Who Owns a Copyright

There are all sorts of scenarios that will work to blur the lines of copyright ownership. The relative or neighbor that asks a student for a logo design for a business, the group of college classmates that all work on a project which later turns out to be a financial goldmine or the employer that misclassifies a job as an independent contractor situation in order to avoid paying high employee payroll taxes all present situations where copyright ownership rights may become muddled. (more…)

Improve Your Website With Clear Text and Compelling Images

May 8, 2014

It’s spring cleaning time and not just for your home. This month, let’s freshen up your website, focusing on web page content. Adding great text and pictures to your site can help humans and search engines better appreciate and understand what your business has to offer.

With 97% of consumers researching products online before making a purchase*, it’s important to spruce up your website from time to time. So swing open those windows, do a little dusting, and use these lessons to get your website ready for spring.

Lesson Highlight: Tell customers about your business with great website text

Potential customers will often start by visiting your business’ website to learn about your products and services. If this is their first contact with your business, it’s important to make a positive first impression. The words on your website must clearly communicate what your business is about, and why a customer should choose you.

You don’t need to write a lot, but your website should clearly answer these questions:

Who owns and works for the business?

What products do you sell or services do you provide? (more…)

Michigan SBDC on Speed Dial

May 7, 2014

Starbuck Machining has been chosen by the SBDC as the West Michigan Region’s Best Small Business of 2013

When Rich Starbuck contacted the West Michigan Region SBDC for help with a business plan in 2000, he didn’t know he’d be beginning a working relationship that would last through all stages of his business’s growth. For two years Starbuck and his SBDC consultant, Dave Sayers, worked on a business plan that would allow him to receive the financing needed to purchase an existing machine shop’s assets and start his own.

On the day Starbuck Machining opened in April of 2002, owner Rich Starbuck recalls running machines as fast as they could get them started.

“We literally moved our first machine into the shop, hooked it up and had somebody run it while we went and got the next one,” Rich laughs. Since that day twelve years ago, both the staff and the machine equipment at Starbuck Machining have never stopped moving, and never stopped growing.

Since this Holland, MI based business opened Rich Starbuck and his son Aaron Starbuck have grown Starbuck Machining from six employees to twenty-seven, and currently have $3 million in sales. Starbuck Machining manufactures products for the agriculture, aquatic, automotive, electronic, security and oil industries, and are government sub-contractors of military armor. Most of their sales come from within Michigan, but they are beginning to do business in other states as well. (more…)

5 Tips for Winning the New Internet Name Game

May 5, 2014

If your website is the online home for your business, your domain name is the unique street address that helps visitors find you online. It’s a critical part of building a strong presence on the Web. Unfortunately, many of the short, easy-to-remember .com’s and .net’s are no longer available. And who wants a domain name with so many characters that you need a ph.D to remember it, or, even worse, a domain that really doesn’t describe what your business has to offer?

Luckily, the online naming game is changing.

With new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) hitting the market all the time, there’s never been a better time to choose a memorable online identity for your business. The hundreds of descriptive new domain extensions—such as .shop, .lawyer, .photography and .guru, just to name a few—give business owners an unprecedented opportunity to register domains that perfectly represent their products or services.

Here are five tips to help you pick a kick-ass domain name for your business’s online identity:

Tip No. 1: Choose a Domain That Describes Your BusinessSure, you want your domain to stand out like a flashy commercial among the gazillions of other domains on the Web, but you also want to be clear about what you do and who you are. (more…)